1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to a system/method for collecting operation parameters from a fleet of vehicles and, more particularly, to providing a system/method for the distribution, storage, and analysis of the collected data.
The present invention also relates generally to the field of aircraft tracking and information services, and more specifically to a system capable of receiving and processing transmissions from multiple aviation sources, including, but not limited to, automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) towers, Very High Frequency Omni-Range (VOR) ground stations, and other aircraft.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various inventions and methods have been developed for gathering and analyzing operational data from a fleet of vehicles. Often these inventions depend on the use of data from a suite of highly-sophisticated sensors that is integrated into the vehicle. Other systems rely on the real-time wireless transmission of the captured data to a ground station or fleet terminal. These data acquisition systems depend on the analysis of the captured data, which must be done either on the vehicle, requiring a large amount of dedicated computing power to be integrated into the vehicle, or at a base station, requiring dedicated computing resources that must react to the data transmissions in real time.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,148,179, 6,160,998, 6,163,681, 6,167,239, 6,173,159, and 6,353,734 by Wright et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 6,167,238 by Wright, each describe a variation on a system that uses a wireless spread spectrum ground link-based system to communicate with aircraft. The common requirement for this group of patents is a system for sending data to or receiving data from an aircraft that depends on an on-board unit that obtains data from the aircraft and creates a communications link with a ground-based spread spectrum transceiver. The data collected from the aircraft can be transmitted to the ground-based transceiver whenever the aircraft is in communications range. This system works well for commercial aircraft such as passenger aircraft that routinely return to the location where the ground-based transceiver is set up, but is impractical and expensive for smaller flight operations or ground-based fleet operations.
U.S. Patent Application Publications 2003/0041155, 2003/0055975, 2005/0220055, and U.S. Pat. No. 7,020,708 by Nelson et al. each describe data communication services that utilize public wireless systems to facilitate communication between a moving body and one or more ground terminals. The inventions described by Nelson et al. depend on the establishment of a radio communications path between the moving body and the ground terminals, and require the availability of public wireless systems. They will not work in areas where no wireless systems exist.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2004/0260777 and corresponding international publication WO 2004/045106 by Kolb et al. describe an aircraft flight data management system which collects aircraft data, formats it in the form of a binary or text file, and transmits the file via email to a ground station. This invention uses a rule-based software algorithm located in the aircraft as a means of determining when data should be sent via email to the ground station for analysis. This invention depends on a satellite or other wireless connection for the transmission of the email, as well as on the existence of a system with the email capability. These systems may be impractical and expensive for smaller flight operations or ground-based fleet operations.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,721,640 and corresponding international publication WO 01/60693 by Glenn et al. describe an event-based aircraft image and data recording system. Image data of various flight parameters is captured periodically during a flight and stored temporarily in a local memory buffer. When the system detects that certain pre-defined conditions exist based on an analysis of aircraft sensor data, a decision is made by the system to transfer the image data from the memory buffer to a separate storage device aboard the aircraft. This system depends on the presence of expensive imaging equipment on the aircraft. Image data, although potentially providing additional information for use in the investigation of an event such as the crash of an aircraft, is not a reliable means for capturing important flight data inasmuch as there are events such as wash-out caused by sunlight entering the camera wherein important flight data is lost. In addition, this is not a practical means for the storage and analysis of continuous data relating to the normal operation of an aircraft or other vehicle due to the excessive memory demands required by such a system, and the impracticability of reviewing this data for specific deviations from desired flight parameters.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2005/0197748 by Holst et al. describes a method and devices for wirelessly uploading and downloading data to and from a vehicle while it is in range of a coordinated network of vehicles. This invention, therefore, depends on the coordinated vehicle network, and will not reliably operate with a single vehicle or very small fleet of vehicles.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,397,128 by Todd describes a flight data recording system integrated with a flight data acquisition unit. This invention depends on the presence of an avionics standard communications bus to obtain data from external aircraft instrumentation subsystems. The flight data acquisition unit cannot itself sense or generate the flight data, but instead is dependent upon being tied into the avionics communications bus to obtain the data from other instruments that are tied into the bus. This invention cannot be used on aircraft or other vehicle types that lack a dedicated on-board communications bus.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,470,116 by Ratchford describes a digital flight data recording system that compares the actual recorded flight parameters to pre-defined optimum values based on an idealized model of an aircraft's flight schedule. The system creates a permanent record of the recorded data when the actual flight values differ significantly from the pre-defined optimum values. This system requires that each aircraft contain the computing platform necessary to store the pre-defined optimum values and to do the comparison. Requiring a computing platform on each aircraft in a fleet is often prohibitively expensive. The comparison to pre-defined values on the aircraft optimizes memory usage; however, there is no mechanism to store data pertaining to the entire flight.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2006/0057974 by Ziarno et al. describes a system and method of transmitting data from an aircraft. The system depends on the use of a PC card that includes a radio transceiver for transmitting aircraft data into the skin of the aircraft, with radiates the radio signal to a remote location. This system is designed for use on larger aircraft with a large metallic outer surface area, such that the skin of the aircraft acts as a passive antenna for the transmission of data. This system is not designed for use on smaller aircraft and vehicles, such as helicopters, trucks, or automobiles.
The inventions described above describe various ways of capturing and/or analyzing operational data from a fleet of vehicles. Most of these inventions depend on the real-time transmission of data over a wireless link to a ground-based station. Some depend on the presence of a complicated ground-based communications system, or depend on being tied into existing aircraft or vehicle subsystems to enable data collection. None of the inventions above describe a low-cost, self-contained system that does not depend on data from existing vehicle subsystems and which is ideally suited to gather operational data for a fleet of vehicles scattered over multiple locations, and provide an analysis of this operational data at a central location on a day to day operational basis.
Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, or ADS-B, is a surveillance technology for tracking aircraft that is part of the Next Generation (NextGen) Air Transportation System.
The system relies on two avionics components: a high-integrity GPS navigation source and a data link (ADS-B unit or receiver). There are several types of certified ADS-B data links, but the most common ones operate at 1090 MHz, essentially a modified Mode S transponder, or at 978 MHz (United States only).
ADS-B consists of two different services, “ADS-B Out” and “ADS-B In”. “ADS-B Out” periodically broadcasts information about an aircraft, including identification, current position, altitude, and velocity, to the outside world, providing air traffic controllers with real-time position information typically more accurate than the information available with current radar-based systems. “ADS-B In” is the reception by aircraft of information including weather data, flight information, traffic avoidance information, and direct communication from nearby aircraft.
The ADS-B system can provide traffic and government generated graphical weather information through the TIS-B (Traffic Information Services-Broadcast) and FIS-B (Flight Information Services-Broadcast) applications.
The majority of aircraft operating within United States airspace will be required to be equipped with at least “ADS-B Out” by January of 2020. Because of this move toward the mandate of ADS-B equipped aircraft, it is seen as important to aviation electronics suppliers and pilots alike that an inexpensive, yet reliable system be available for implementation of the ADS-B functionality. Some suppliers are offering ADS-B solutions that interface with mobile computing devices such as an iPad, in order to provide a relatively inexpensive display for the system that is also capable of running applications and performing other tasks when not being used as an ADS-B display.
While using a mobile device such as an iPad is an innovative approach, the solution is not without its issues. Mobile devices run on battery power, and therefore often drop into “sleep” mode in order to conserve battery life. When the mobile device is in sleep mode, or when the ADS-B application (that is, the software application or program executing on the mobile device and performing the ADS-B functionality) is pushed into the background by another competing application running on the mobile device, the ADS-B application is likely not receiving broadcasts from the ADS-B system, and therefore may be missing important weather updates. When a pilot or other operator turns the mobile device on (or “wakes” it from sleep mode) to check the weather, he or she may have just missed a weather broadcast, or may have missed one almost 15 minutes earlier (the approximate broadcast rate of national weather updates), and so the weather display may be significantly out of date. The pilot could fly into inclement weather he or she cannot see on the erroneous (not updated) display.
What is needed in the art is a system that is capable of caching multiple generations of broadcast data (including but not limited to ADS-B weather broadcasts), providing access to those multiple generations of data or to a selected subset thereof to a mobile device upon request by the mobile device, a means for displaying the data or data subset on the mobile device either as still imagery or as an animation, and a means for automatically detecting when the mobile device has “awakened” or turned on and transmitting cached broadcast data to the mobile device upon wake up such that it is displayed in a useable manner.